Chapter Text
The portal was open! Finally, after thirty years of trying and trying and losing and regaining hope so many times, it was working! His brother could come back!
But...something was wrong. Nothing was coming through the portal. Wait! There it was! A silhouette, Ford it was Ford he was--
The silhouette was falling through the portal--collapsing through the portal. Oh no was he hurt!? Stan scrambled to his feet despite the scream of his old bones telling him not to and bolted for the figure.
And when the figure came into view, Stan froze. No. No no no no no. Not after all this time, not after all these years, not after all his mistakes, not after everything. The lifeless body on the ground brought hell crashing through Stanley's mind and all he could do was scream.
"STANFORD!"
~
"Stanford!" He choked, falling out of the bed in his scramble and landing with a loud, painful thud. He hardly felt it though, all he could feel was anguish, anguish and terror. That dream felt too real, too much like memory and that was something he couldn’t handle. Adrenaline rushed through him and he burst out of his own room and pounded down the stairs because he had to make sure it wasn’t true (it couldn’t be true it’s not true it’s not true it’s not true).
He didn’t know how he managed to open the basement room door quietly (a part of him figured it should be locked, and the fact that it wasn’t only made him panic more), but he stood in the doorway panting like a dog for a good minute before relief finally seeped through him.
Ford was asleep on the couch, still fully dressed and covered in a blanket (why that many layers it was August for christ’s sake) and breathing. Ford was breathing and alive and safe. All of his panic faded into exhaustion; he slowly padded over to an armchair across from the couch and collapsed into it. He ran a hand down his face with a quiet groan.
Stan was too old for this shit.
An idiotically hopeful part of him had believed that once his brother was back, the nightmares would go away. No more nightmares about never getting Ford back, about Ford being tortured in whatever hell dimension he had been trapped in, about Ford being dead. But no, if anything the nightmares seemed to have increased, like his mind couldn’t comprehend that he had succeeded.
Maybe because sometimes it felt like he hadn’t.
Ford avoided him like the plague, and when he spoke it was never more than a few terse words. The tension was so thick it couldn’t even be cut with a knife, or an axe, or whatever cutting weapon was stronger than that. They both knew if more than those words were exchanged, they would likely come to blows. So life went on in whatever twisted way it went on in now, with Ford in the basement doing god knows what and Stan upstairs running the (soon-to-be defunct) Mystery Shack and both of them pretending that the other didn’t really exist. Like ghosts to each other.
And then there was...this. Whatever this pathetic thing was. This thing where Stan’s nightmares would be so horrendously awful yet real that he just had to make sure his brother was okay. This had been happening almost every night since Ford had returned, almost a week now. Stan would have a goddamn nightmare, he’d run down to check that Ford had a goddamn pulse, then, simultaneously exhausted and unable to go back to sleep, he’d sit in this goddamn armchair and made sure Ford kept that goddamn pulse. Once his eyelids started to grow heavy again he’d quietly make his exit, go back to bed, and no one would be the wiser.
He settled in, eyes fixed on the steady rise and fall of Ford’s shoulders.
“God, I feel like a creep.” He muttered to himself. He muttered those words to himself every night, but it never stopped him. He’d rather feel like a creep and know his brother was still alive, because every time he blinked the remains of his nightmare would flash in his eyelids. So he watched Ford breathe and let his mind circle in on the painful thoughts they always began to circle in on.
Creep, fuck-up, idiot, asshole, those kinds of words had always been used to describe him, hadn’t the--
“No.”
Stan started a little.
“Ford?” He leaned forward. Ford shifted, but his movements were twitchy.
“No...no, let me go…” He growled, rolling over roughly, only to turn back a moment later. Oh. He was still asleep. Stan felt a little uncomfortable, but indecision (and, he wasn't going to lie, fascination) kept him still. What was his brother dreaming about?
“Get off me this instant!” Ford swiped the air, shuddering a little. Whatever he said next was in some guttural language Stan had never heard before, but the force behind the words was essentially the same. Stan shifted uncomfortably. It would make sense that Ford would have nightmares: he’d been through as much shit as--if not more than--Stan had. But being privy to the man’s nightmares felt a little bit like crossing the line. Then again, he was currently watching Ford sleep. The line was already crossed.
Suddenly Ford jolted, practically sitting upright, every muscle in his body rigid and tense. He immediately fell back down, still rigid and tense and struggling in his spot. He choked on nothing and he clawed at a spot in the center of his chest.
Ok, Stan had seen enough. He couldn't just sit there and watch Ford in pain. He walked over to where his brother lay, a little wary of any sudden movements Ford might make.
“Ford?” He tried first. “Ford wake up.”
It didn't work--Ford continued to convulse. Stan tentatively touched Ford’s shoulder.
“Ford you’re having a nightmare.” He raised his voice, a little more nervous now. That garnered no response either. Stan cursed under his breath and shook Ford by the shoulder.
“Ford it's not real! Ford! Wake up!”
Ford shot up gasping, panting for breath like he had just resurfaced from drowning underwater. He shuddered as he heaved, but as soon as he noticed Stan’s hand on his shoulder he swatted it away violently.
“Let go of me!” He snarled, recoiling away from Stan, one hand still clutching at that spot on his chest, bunching in the fabric of his sweater. Stan immediately backed off, hands raised in a clearly non-threatening way.
“Okay, okay, jeez! Just, calm down, Ford. It was just a nightmare.”
Ford blinked a few times, then relaxed--barely--against the back of the couch. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back; his breathing was still very heavy, and he winced as he massaged the spot on his chest.
“Are you...are you ok there?” Stan asked. Ford startled, as if he had forgotten (or never realized) Stan was there. For a moment he tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. When they did, they were very breathy.
“Stanley? What are you doing here?”
Ah shit. Ford would flip if he knew Stan had been watching him sleep. Stan shifted, coming up with a lie on the spot.
“I uh, I heard you screaming, Ford. Surprised you didn't wake the kids up with the racket you were making.” He said. Ford narrowed his eyes confusedly.
“But...I wasn't screaming. I was...I couldn't breathe.”
“Well I was just coming downstairs for something when I heard you struggling or whatever in here, and I figured I'd wake you up rather than let you suffer through...whatever the hell you were suffering through.” Stan gestured lamely with his hand. This time when Ford narrowed his eyes, it was with suspicion, not confusion. Ah crap.
“You changed your story.”
Stan should have known better than to try covering his tracks when Ford still had traces of that goddamn paranoia. He was too used to conning the idiots of the town, not his genius brother. But he wasn't about to give up yet.
“I don't know, all I know is that I heard you in here and didn’t particularly like what I heard, okay? I'm an old man, ain't my memory allowed to be bad?” He grumbled defensively. Hopefully his standoffishness would discourage Ford from prying much further.
“Look, just, I'm going to go back t--”
“You’re lying.” Ford cut him off. Stan cursed internally. Ford wasn't looking at him, he was looking past him at the armchair. Where his robe lay. Because it had slipped off when he stood up to wake up Ford. Dammit.
“You were sitting there--you--you were watching me sleep! What the hell Stanley!?” His brother cried. Stan fumbled to explain; it was difficult to admit the truth to his brother--he felt pathetic that this was happening at all.
“Look--l-look, I can explain--it's just--I just--I can't help it--”
“You’ve already meddled enough with my life, you have to be a nuisance when I’m trying to sleep, too?” Ford shouted over him. And just like that, everything in Stan chilled down to icy rage.
Nuisance? Was that really all he was to Ford, even now? Not getting a “thank you” or being overly acknowledged by his brother, that he had been dealing with (sort of). But this? A nuisance? It reopened an old wound and suddenly it was thirty years ago again.
“I'm giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life and you won't even listen!”
A worthless nuisance. That’s all he was. It’s not like he hadn’t thrown words like that in his own face for years upon years but to hear them from someone he still (still) cared about, it always stung worse. Stan blinked away the burning in his eyes and clenched his fists. He didn’t even have the words to respond. So he did what he always did when he didn’t have anything to say: he turned on his heel and walked out.
“I--wait, Stanley--”
Stan slammed the door shut behind him. He didn’t need Ford to try and lie about what he said and what he meant. He knew when he wasn’t wanted (it was such a common feeling to begin with). It wasn’t until he shut the door to his own room that he released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He sure as hell didn’t let any tears fall. He had cried enough over his brother, and Ford made it clearer every day that he hadn’t done anything of the kind.
But of course, sleep was an elusive bitch. And he forgot his robe in Ford’s room. Just great.